See you at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show at the Cow Palace, Wednesday March 21 to Sunday March 25, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., closeing Sunday at 6 p.m. Be sure to visit Novato’s own Suburban Habitat’s Matt Buchholz “If Looks Could Kill” poisonous plants of the landscape display. Contact: (800) 569-2832, www.gardenshow.com.

Spring has arrived seemingly overnight with the appearance of spring bulbs and clouds of fragrant plum and cherry blossom; the ground is warming quickly. I’m scrambling to catch up on delayed garden cleanup and pruning chores. It is such a pleasure to be out during the longer sunlight hours, thanks to extra daylight savings time, that I don’t want to go inside. I meander from corner to corner of the garden grooming perennials that survived the cold, digging carefully so that I don’t disturb forgotten summer bulbs. Bulb flowers purchased as container plants should be put outdoors when their blooms fade. Keep them watered and fed until their foliage dies back in late spring-early summer, then if you have a garden, plant them in the ground. They need some TLC to build nutrients in their bulb and may not repeat bloom until their second year.

Part of a continuing series of columns:

Number 4 in the list of top 10 Stupid Garden Mistakes Anyone Could Make: Did not allow enough for ultimate size of plants or research rate of growth.

Though they may start out at the same size, giant marigolds should be planted behind dwarf marigolds. Other design decisions are not always this obvious.

When I embarked on adding plants to the landscape of our first house, I embraced variety at nurseries and indulged my pent up desire for plants and more plants. I did know a few things; I knew something about our yard’s soil type, drainage and available light and water. My experience with landscaping had been primarily with tropical and semi-tropical container plants and outdoor vegetables and annuals. I planted a yucca and palm that had been in containers on a porch for over twenty years. They reached twenty feet tall within a few years after being removed from their confining pots. A nursery purchase of a one-gallon container butterfly bush labeled “reaches 15 to 20 feet” became that tall and equally wide within three years.

Pittosporum, which I knew as well-behaved container plants, reached rooftop height and needed severe pruning. There are dwarf varieties that would have been better suited near the house.

I’m very partial to spring blooming cistus, (rockrose). There are many varieties including some dwarf groundcovers. Available in gallon containers, most reach their full size of four to five feet wide and tall within their second or third year. They need annual pruning to stay filled in and keep a neat appearance. The larger cistus are most attractive set back in a large bed or behind smaller perennials but not the thing to plant along the edge of a narrow pathway. This is what garden books, such as the “Sunset Western Garden Book” and good nursery plant labeling are for – to prevent idiotic mistakes. Look for specific descriptions of maximum height and width as well as growth rate. What does it mean when the description says things like “grows slowly” or ”fast grower?” Sometimes it will be clear but sometimes you need to ask, “Compared to what?” It pays to do further research either in other books or on the Internet. Nursery sales staff and garden designers with hands-on field experience can be of great help. As a general guideline, most landscapers will plant with the final height and width of a shrub or tree in mind. That is why newly planted landscapes often seem Zen-like and bare, with large areas of mulch in between plants. Groundcovers are set out in patterns that allow room to fill in. A good landscape designer or architect knows how big trees will grow and how long it will take. They include adaptable night lighting for changing shadows as landscaping matures and allow for the change in daytime shading as trees fill in. Some designers will include short-lived plants that can be removed as the landscape ages. With or without planning, all gardeners will make changes to their landscaping as it matures. What was once a hot sunny area may evolve into a shade garden. Shrubs and perennials may have lived out their lifespan and need replacing. It is your little patch of the living world.

source : www.novatoadvance.com